Who are the shadowy Svengalis whispering in the ears of the nominally powerful front men whom we naively think actually rule us? Who makes up this Inner Party of terrifying omniscience? Who are the real life equivalents of the characters Mustapha Mond and O’Brien, the brilliant and sinister controllers who come on at the end of
I 100% suspect that's the case. Well, along with Jill. Who knows what's going on between those two. Jill raised him after all, and look how he turned out...
Since none of the Dem legacy media has ever dared to report on what the Lightbringer is doing in D.C. and who he sees and talks to, that’s what I mean when I say they’re blowing smoke in our face …
How exactly are they going to keep deteriorating Biden in a cocoon for four months? If he’s out and about during the Sundowning hours he’s bound to repeat his debate performance and we are all looking for it. He so clearly suffers from dementia that it’s a traitorous act to support his running.
Trump is competitive, at least, in any Hubris-measuring contest.
By this I mean that Trump cares more about himself, promoting himself, than about "MAGA" (whatever it means to him, or to anyone at this point). It's all a mixture of slogans, vague nods in political directions that aren't followed through, self-aggrandizement, bluster, and petty insults -- as if politics were pro-wrestling.
Since DJT brooks no rivals, there is also no clear path for any MAGA movement beyond January 20, 2029 (assuming such a thing as MAGA even exists, for DJT's own ideology is incoherent at best!).
There's no definite track-record to suggest that a Jan 2025 to Jan 2029 Trump presidency would pursue relentlessly an immigration-moratorium agenda and other obviously needed policies, the kinds of things that people in White Middle-America in 2016 assumed he held, back when DJT, Sailer-Strategy'ed himself to the most-implausible White House win ever seen. Yes, I have to say "hubris" applies to DJT.
Human hubris is an underestimated condition in otherwise functional people. I don't know how age affects hubris, but it has taken out a number of people over the course of recorded History. This may be such a time; only time will tell.
I think the need to believe conspiracy theories is metaphysical. The idea that our lives are ruled not just by random chance, but also by the random stupid mistakes that powerful people make is hard to swallow. It's difficult to believe that horrible policy mistakes the ruined the lives of millions was just human error and not some evil plot.
Another appeal of the 'evil 'elite' who are causing all the bad stuff to happen' type of conspiracy theorising is that it allows people to indulge in a romantic illusion about 'the rest of us blameless ordinary folks'.
An amusing effect of this aspect of conspiracy theorism is that on the occasion they succeed into getting an 'ordinary person' into office or otherwise endowed with power, said person proceeds to flail around and ultimately fails to make things better. His followers the immediately conclude he sold out or betrayed them.
I think the need to dismiss theories merely because they involve a "conspiracy" comes from a desire to avoid the psychological discomfort of uncertainty. It's axiomatic that people act in their self-interest. When the interests of multiple people coincide, they will act in concert -- i.e., form a "conspiracy." And they often won't advertise their activities.
The whole world is a series of conspiracies. It is childlike to think everything is always as it is advertised. The conspiracies are all around. The only problem is that the number of hypothetical conspiracies is infinite, while the number of secret conspiracies that can be proven is, by definition, pretty small.
There is a longtime Sailer reader who posts comments to Sailer's other blog who regularly argues that Wokeness is largely driven by the political-cultural empowerment of Cluster-B personality-disordered people, largely women and largely facilitated (if not caused outright) by technology (Internet, social media).
Actual elites and Deep State'rs, whatever one takes that to mean, will tend NOT to be Cluster-B people, but more level-headed. The exception of course is a regular flow of narcissistic front-men who love the spotlight and love themselves and have seemingly insurmountable self-confidence even when there may not be much substance ther(DJT himself easily qualifying on this front).
The power-elite, on the one hand, and the "cluster-B Wokeness coalition," on the other hand, formed a strong partnership in the 2010s, as we saw when every major institution came out for Black Lives Matter in mid-2020, and so on. But it would be an error to say: "The elites themselves are pro-Wokeness fanatics," IMO.
Seems true that most conspiracy theories imply both an implausible level of competence among the conspirators and an unlikely personification of an evil master at the top of the hierarchy. But perhaps both of these unlikely explanations are more a function of human psychology and the limits of our understanding of how influence works rather than a definitive argument against the presence of conspiracies per se. Humans make cartoons of causality that are often simple, personified and often based on a “just world hypothesis”. That creates a tendency to personify complex systemic events as well as attributing false planning and forethought to specific outcomes AFTER THE FACT. Hence our penchant for inventing personified gods as explanations for outcomes with complex causality.
Let’s take immigration as an example. If it benefits powerful industries and creates surfs of the middle class, is there a “conspiracy” to steal from the middle class and give to the rich? It might appear so when there’s one guy (Biden) currently in power and leaving borders wide open. Whats he up to we wonder? Who’s he answering to? We see the effect and make up a simple and current explanation for a very multifaceted and complex outcome which came about in a multifactorial manner over a very long period of time. The ability to track the cumulative effects of multiple inputs and interests across time exceeds our capacities resulting in a very simplified theory and a false attribution of competence (easy to do since the outcome has already occurred so it must have been brought about by a capable force). Does that mean Biden isn’t an agent of the trend over decades to distribute middle class wealth to the wealthy? Is it an accident that his policies further that process despite being unpopular with the majority of Americans?
Blaming Biden personally for the surge of illegal border-crosses and asylum-seekers seems to me: (1.) unfair to Biden (for being too simplistic and reductionist); and (2.) too-tempting to avoid, as cheap political propaganda/
But, then, who IS responsible for the "open border"? (Better framed, "who and/or what is responsible").
Does Sailer's "Peak State" theory imply Biden indeed must be responsible? Does Peak State theory imply there is no "ideological superstructure," elite class that works for goals of its own, lobbyists of all kinds (both seen and unseen)? None of these people are the president, after all.
I don't think Peak State means leaders are necessarily competent. When you have a senile president there's not going to be much in the way of people like Mayorkas doing whatever they please with essentially no oversight.
Imagine you're a shift worker at some convenience store and your boss is completely out of it. So much so that you decide to sell meth to the local druggies as a side business.
If your boss is sufficiently senile and those closest to him don't give a damn about your shift you could be pretty flagrant about selling drugs from his store and not worry about losing your job or getting in trouble.
Clearly he's still your boss, but in an important sense being his subordinate protects and empowers you. You don't have to listen to anyone else. You can just say "my boss told me to keep up the good work" and tell them to screw off.
That's going on all throughout this train wreck of an administration.
The border didn't open itself. Someone had to decide they wanted it open. Someone had to commission a legal memo on how to change the administrative interpretation of asylum eligibility so that everyone qualified. Someone had to decide this was desirable. Someone had to order that the policy be implemented. Someone had to organize the secret flights to relocate the migrants around the country.
According to Steve, since Biden is nominally filling the office of the President, he decided all this (with possible input from Hunter). No. It was some combination of lawyers, activists, lobbyists and donors -- Deep State "conspirators," if you will.
Biden's not in charge. Neither was Obama. or Bush 43. Or Clinton. Or Bush 41. Quit lying.
All did the bidding of their masters. Who ever were the big donors and who ever had the blackmail.
Trump terrifies the Deep State because he actually thinks he is in charge. And, as Julian Assange stated bluntly, there's nothing to expose about him --and hence nothing to blackmail.
Stealing the 2020 election and installing Biden was the Deep State giving a big ol' "FU" to the American people. "You elected Trump over our will? You think you have power? Now we're openly stealing this election and installing a dementia-addled old man that nobody voted for. He's an open puppet without brains. Deal with it."
Biden was the Deep State mocking Americans with his installation.
Quit lying, Steve. Biden never was and isn't now in charge. His family is just fighting for him to remain the first puppet so they can get all the perks.
See: the Roman Empire, when the Praetorian Guard would install puppet emperors at will and remove those who didn't play nice with them.
The June 2024 debate -- and the coordinated-seeming "freakout" by elite D-team backers -- has shifted the betting markets considerably. But the shift is entirely 'against' Biden, and not 'for' Trump.
The biggest single winners, if we take betting-market data as reliable, could be Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer. We also see a lot of people dealing in real money who believe in the Michelle Obama 'conspiracy' theory. And some die-hards are holding the Hillary Clinton flame. What a turn-about that would be, Hillary crowned as nominee, out of nowhere, at DNC-2024...
Here it is:
.
[The odds to WIN THE PRESIDENCY in 2024, as of June 27th, 2024, pre-debate]
- 52%: Trump
- 2%: Any other Republican
- 36%: Biden
- 8%: Any other Democrat (3.5% Newsom, 3% Michelle Obama, 1.5% Kamala Harris)
- 2% Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
.
[The odds to win the presidency, as of late Sunday June 30th]
- 54%: Trump
- 1%: Any other Republican
- 20%: Biden
- 23%: Any other Democrat (8% Newsom, 5.5% Michelle Obama, 5% Kamala Harris, 3.5% Governor Whitmer [Michigan], 1.5% Hillary Clinton)
- 2% RFK Jr. (Kennedy was, at one time, as high as 8-9% in the betting-odds to win the presidency [much of summer 2023]. But he has been mostly around 3% in 2024. In the past few weeks he has fallen to 2% and got no bump from the post-debate anti-Biden palace-coup imbroglio still ongoing. This despite Chris Cuomo's recent friendly suggestion to him that he approach the DNC superdelegates to try to snatch the D-team nomination from Biden).
That the director of the CIA is on 204k a year is about as relevant as the fact that Biden was making what, 175k a year until his elevation to the vice presidency. How many houses did he buy on that? The salary is just table stakes.
Considering the shadowy cabal isn't as capable as we may think, I don't know if that should make me happy, or even more concerned for the human condition.
An area of deep competence is the Democratic ballot harvesting operation. They know who their voters are and how to get to them. Plus they have very smart lawyers until you get to the elected ones (Fani for exame).
It's good that Steve is writing these articles as a needed debunking of the dumber conspiracy theories that have spread on the fringes of the right in recent years. But, at the same time, most smart people don't really think there is some cartoon-like puppet masters pulling the strings. In practice, it's more akin to powerful lobby groups being able to exert ever deeper influence on policy, which is especially the case when the president and his inner circle are not overly intelligent. Steve's own past writing has illustrated this with the regard to the transgender lobby....and also many of the corporate types that lobby for immigration. Biden's policies on these two issues in particular, the border and transgender issues, is indicative of that: left to his own devices, it's hard to imagine Biden himself being enthusiastic about either of these issues, and yet they've nevertheless become defining aspects of his administration. Why? Precisely because as a weak leader, he's susceptible to giving into the pressure the activists/lobbyists pushing for these things exert.
"most smart people don't really think there is some cartoon-like puppet masters pulling the strings."
Exactly. In fact, the cartoon "puppet-master" scenario is actually the antithesis of the "Deep State." The "Deep State" is, by definition, a permanent bureaucracy of entrenched interest, not a bold secret monarchy. They are necessarily incompetent at doing good policy in so far as their SOP is inevitably inertia, group think, secrecy, and non-accountability.
Don’t know about the transcript, but you can watch it at therealdebate.com
Steve, that article in the NYT is just blowing smoke in our faces …
Or, then again, maybe the Svengali of the Biden Administration, the genius who tells the nominal President what to do, is ... Hunter Biden?
I 100% suspect that's the case. Well, along with Jill. Who knows what's going on between those two. Jill raised him after all, and look how he turned out...
So your theory is that this guy is actually making all the decisions in the executive branch.
https://x.com/GandhiAOC/status/1807987923666583833
Since none of the Dem legacy media has ever dared to report on what the Lightbringer is doing in D.C. and who he sees and talks to, that’s what I mean when I say they’re blowing smoke in our face …
How exactly are they going to keep deteriorating Biden in a cocoon for four months? If he’s out and about during the Sundowning hours he’s bound to repeat his debate performance and we are all looking for it. He so clearly suffers from dementia that it’s a traitorous act to support his running.
Trump is competitive, at least, in any Hubris-measuring contest.
By this I mean that Trump cares more about himself, promoting himself, than about "MAGA" (whatever it means to him, or to anyone at this point). It's all a mixture of slogans, vague nods in political directions that aren't followed through, self-aggrandizement, bluster, and petty insults -- as if politics were pro-wrestling.
Since DJT brooks no rivals, there is also no clear path for any MAGA movement beyond January 20, 2029 (assuming such a thing as MAGA even exists, for DJT's own ideology is incoherent at best!).
There's no definite track-record to suggest that a Jan 2025 to Jan 2029 Trump presidency would pursue relentlessly an immigration-moratorium agenda and other obviously needed policies, the kinds of things that people in White Middle-America in 2016 assumed he held, back when DJT, Sailer-Strategy'ed himself to the most-implausible White House win ever seen. Yes, I have to say "hubris" applies to DJT.
Human hubris is an underestimated condition in otherwise functional people. I don't know how age affects hubris, but it has taken out a number of people over the course of recorded History. This may be such a time; only time will tell.
I think the need to believe conspiracy theories is metaphysical. The idea that our lives are ruled not just by random chance, but also by the random stupid mistakes that powerful people make is hard to swallow. It's difficult to believe that horrible policy mistakes the ruined the lives of millions was just human error and not some evil plot.
Another appeal of the 'evil 'elite' who are causing all the bad stuff to happen' type of conspiracy theorising is that it allows people to indulge in a romantic illusion about 'the rest of us blameless ordinary folks'.
An amusing effect of this aspect of conspiracy theorism is that on the occasion they succeed into getting an 'ordinary person' into office or otherwise endowed with power, said person proceeds to flail around and ultimately fails to make things better. His followers the immediately conclude he sold out or betrayed them.
I think the need to dismiss theories merely because they involve a "conspiracy" comes from a desire to avoid the psychological discomfort of uncertainty. It's axiomatic that people act in their self-interest. When the interests of multiple people coincide, they will act in concert -- i.e., form a "conspiracy." And they often won't advertise their activities.
The whole world is a series of conspiracies. It is childlike to think everything is always as it is advertised. The conspiracies are all around. The only problem is that the number of hypothetical conspiracies is infinite, while the number of secret conspiracies that can be proven is, by definition, pretty small.
The Cluster B elites.
There is a longtime Sailer reader who posts comments to Sailer's other blog who regularly argues that Wokeness is largely driven by the political-cultural empowerment of Cluster-B personality-disordered people, largely women and largely facilitated (if not caused outright) by technology (Internet, social media).
Actual elites and Deep State'rs, whatever one takes that to mean, will tend NOT to be Cluster-B people, but more level-headed. The exception of course is a regular flow of narcissistic front-men who love the spotlight and love themselves and have seemingly insurmountable self-confidence even when there may not be much substance ther(DJT himself easily qualifying on this front).
The power-elite, on the one hand, and the "cluster-B Wokeness coalition," on the other hand, formed a strong partnership in the 2010s, as we saw when every major institution came out for Black Lives Matter in mid-2020, and so on. But it would be an error to say: "The elites themselves are pro-Wokeness fanatics," IMO.
I feel like this was written just for me.
Meaning?
I keep telling him that I don't understand and he keeps explaining.
Seems true that most conspiracy theories imply both an implausible level of competence among the conspirators and an unlikely personification of an evil master at the top of the hierarchy. But perhaps both of these unlikely explanations are more a function of human psychology and the limits of our understanding of how influence works rather than a definitive argument against the presence of conspiracies per se. Humans make cartoons of causality that are often simple, personified and often based on a “just world hypothesis”. That creates a tendency to personify complex systemic events as well as attributing false planning and forethought to specific outcomes AFTER THE FACT. Hence our penchant for inventing personified gods as explanations for outcomes with complex causality.
Let’s take immigration as an example. If it benefits powerful industries and creates surfs of the middle class, is there a “conspiracy” to steal from the middle class and give to the rich? It might appear so when there’s one guy (Biden) currently in power and leaving borders wide open. Whats he up to we wonder? Who’s he answering to? We see the effect and make up a simple and current explanation for a very multifaceted and complex outcome which came about in a multifactorial manner over a very long period of time. The ability to track the cumulative effects of multiple inputs and interests across time exceeds our capacities resulting in a very simplified theory and a false attribution of competence (easy to do since the outcome has already occurred so it must have been brought about by a capable force). Does that mean Biden isn’t an agent of the trend over decades to distribute middle class wealth to the wealthy? Is it an accident that his policies further that process despite being unpopular with the majority of Americans?
Blaming Biden personally for the surge of illegal border-crosses and asylum-seekers seems to me: (1.) unfair to Biden (for being too simplistic and reductionist); and (2.) too-tempting to avoid, as cheap political propaganda/
But, then, who IS responsible for the "open border"? (Better framed, "who and/or what is responsible").
Does Sailer's "Peak State" theory imply Biden indeed must be responsible? Does Peak State theory imply there is no "ideological superstructure," elite class that works for goals of its own, lobbyists of all kinds (both seen and unseen)? None of these people are the president, after all.
I don't think Peak State means leaders are necessarily competent. When you have a senile president there's not going to be much in the way of people like Mayorkas doing whatever they please with essentially no oversight.
Imagine you're a shift worker at some convenience store and your boss is completely out of it. So much so that you decide to sell meth to the local druggies as a side business.
If your boss is sufficiently senile and those closest to him don't give a damn about your shift you could be pretty flagrant about selling drugs from his store and not worry about losing your job or getting in trouble.
Clearly he's still your boss, but in an important sense being his subordinate protects and empowers you. You don't have to listen to anyone else. You can just say "my boss told me to keep up the good work" and tell them to screw off.
That's going on all throughout this train wreck of an administration.
The border didn't open itself. Someone had to decide they wanted it open. Someone had to commission a legal memo on how to change the administrative interpretation of asylum eligibility so that everyone qualified. Someone had to decide this was desirable. Someone had to order that the policy be implemented. Someone had to organize the secret flights to relocate the migrants around the country.
According to Steve, since Biden is nominally filling the office of the President, he decided all this (with possible input from Hunter). No. It was some combination of lawyers, activists, lobbyists and donors -- Deep State "conspirators," if you will.
Biden's not in charge. Neither was Obama. or Bush 43. Or Clinton. Or Bush 41. Quit lying.
All did the bidding of their masters. Who ever were the big donors and who ever had the blackmail.
Trump terrifies the Deep State because he actually thinks he is in charge. And, as Julian Assange stated bluntly, there's nothing to expose about him --and hence nothing to blackmail.
Stealing the 2020 election and installing Biden was the Deep State giving a big ol' "FU" to the American people. "You elected Trump over our will? You think you have power? Now we're openly stealing this election and installing a dementia-addled old man that nobody voted for. He's an open puppet without brains. Deal with it."
Biden was the Deep State mocking Americans with his installation.
Quit lying, Steve. Biden never was and isn't now in charge. His family is just fighting for him to remain the first puppet so they can get all the perks.
See: the Roman Empire, when the Praetorian Guard would install puppet emperors at will and remove those who didn't play nice with them.
Data of interest re theories on what's going on:
The June 2024 debate -- and the coordinated-seeming "freakout" by elite D-team backers -- has shifted the betting markets considerably. But the shift is entirely 'against' Biden, and not 'for' Trump.
The biggest single winners, if we take betting-market data as reliable, could be Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer. We also see a lot of people dealing in real money who believe in the Michelle Obama 'conspiracy' theory. And some die-hards are holding the Hillary Clinton flame. What a turn-about that would be, Hillary crowned as nominee, out of nowhere, at DNC-2024...
Here it is:
.
[The odds to WIN THE PRESIDENCY in 2024, as of June 27th, 2024, pre-debate]
- 52%: Trump
- 2%: Any other Republican
- 36%: Biden
- 8%: Any other Democrat (3.5% Newsom, 3% Michelle Obama, 1.5% Kamala Harris)
- 2% Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
.
[The odds to win the presidency, as of late Sunday June 30th]
- 54%: Trump
- 1%: Any other Republican
- 20%: Biden
- 23%: Any other Democrat (8% Newsom, 5.5% Michelle Obama, 5% Kamala Harris, 3.5% Governor Whitmer [Michigan], 1.5% Hillary Clinton)
- 2% RFK Jr. (Kennedy was, at one time, as high as 8-9% in the betting-odds to win the presidency [much of summer 2023]. But he has been mostly around 3% in 2024. In the past few weeks he has fallen to 2% and got no bump from the post-debate anti-Biden palace-coup imbroglio still ongoing. This despite Chris Cuomo's recent friendly suggestion to him that he approach the DNC superdelegates to try to snatch the D-team nomination from Biden).
https://www.realclearpolling.com/betting-odds/2024/president
That the director of the CIA is on 204k a year is about as relevant as the fact that Biden was making what, 175k a year until his elevation to the vice presidency. How many houses did he buy on that? The salary is just table stakes.
Considering the shadowy cabal isn't as capable as we may think, I don't know if that should make me happy, or even more concerned for the human condition.
"For example, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Bill Burns, earns a $204,000 salary. Granted, the benefits are nice, but still …"
Mr. Sailer, megghiu cumannari ca futtiri.
An area of deep competence is the Democratic ballot harvesting operation. They know who their voters are and how to get to them. Plus they have very smart lawyers until you get to the elected ones (Fani for exame).
It's good that Steve is writing these articles as a needed debunking of the dumber conspiracy theories that have spread on the fringes of the right in recent years. But, at the same time, most smart people don't really think there is some cartoon-like puppet masters pulling the strings. In practice, it's more akin to powerful lobby groups being able to exert ever deeper influence on policy, which is especially the case when the president and his inner circle are not overly intelligent. Steve's own past writing has illustrated this with the regard to the transgender lobby....and also many of the corporate types that lobby for immigration. Biden's policies on these two issues in particular, the border and transgender issues, is indicative of that: left to his own devices, it's hard to imagine Biden himself being enthusiastic about either of these issues, and yet they've nevertheless become defining aspects of his administration. Why? Precisely because as a weak leader, he's susceptible to giving into the pressure the activists/lobbyists pushing for these things exert.
"most smart people don't really think there is some cartoon-like puppet masters pulling the strings."
Exactly. In fact, the cartoon "puppet-master" scenario is actually the antithesis of the "Deep State." The "Deep State" is, by definition, a permanent bureaucracy of entrenched interest, not a bold secret monarchy. They are necessarily incompetent at doing good policy in so far as their SOP is inevitably inertia, group think, secrecy, and non-accountability.